Discuss the Characteristics of a Good Test
The following are the qualities of a good test:
1. Objectivity
It is an important characteristic of a good test that affects both the reliability and validity of the test. It means that the personal assumptions and pre-thoughts of the examiner should not affect the scores of the child. It is said that 'A test should yield the same or nearly same score irrespective of the person who scores it. Objectivity has two aspects:
(a) Objectivity of items
Items in the test should be as simple as possible. The pupil should be able to interpret the item correctly. These should not influence on pupils' mental status.,
(b) Objectivity in scoring
The variations in the examiner's mood, the feelings of the examiner, his attitudes and prejudices should not affect the scoring of the test. In other words, personal judgement and feelings of not affect the scoring of the test. examiner should
2. Reliability
Reliability implies accuracy and consistency in behaviour. Therefore, a test must be measured accurately and consistently. According to Freeman, "The term reliability refers it the extent to which a test "is internally consistent and the extent to which it gives consistent results on testing and retesting."
A reliable test should yield essentially the same score when administered twice to the same sample of population. A test should also draft the same candidate at the same score even if it is examined by the same or different examiners at the same time or at different times, the difference in scores should be negligible. |
3. Validity
A test is said to be valid if it actually measures what is supposed to be measured. According to Kilesnik, "A valid test is one which measures the traits and qualities that are intended to be measured." Cronbach has also defined validity as "Validity is the extent to which a test measures what is supposed to measure.
" Validity is an important characteristic of a good test. Reliability is the necessary condition for validity, but validity is not the necessary condition for reliability, in other words, if a test is valid, it will be reliable also.
4. Discrimination
A good test must pick out good and poor students from a population or a group. Each item of the test must discriminate between good and poor children. If an item is answered by an equal number of Intelligent and poor students, it has no discrimination or discriminative value.
But if only intelligent children are able to do an item and most of the children miss it, it has highly discriminating value. After the administration and scoring of the test, each item of the test is analysed to calculate the level of difficulty.
The process of analysing the items is known as item analysis. Therefore a good test should discriminate against the children according to their achievements and abilities. It should classify children into different groups e.g., gifted, average, poor etc.
5. Practicability or usability
A good test is that which is convenient and practicable for both the teacher and the student. A good test should be easy, attractive and interesting. The language of the test items should be simple and clear. Thus, usability means no difficulty should come across using a particular test. A good test may be practical in three ways:
- ease in construction (Simple in construction)
- rease in administration
- ease in scoring/evaluation
Thus, a test should be neither too long nor too short and it should finish in the time allotted for it.
6. Comprehensiveness
A good test should be capable of measuring all of the factual knowledge or skills that a child has acquired in a particular subject. A test is comprehensive to the degree to which it samples sufficiently widely into the subject.
It is said that a test should be comprehensive enough to be valid. It should include all units, sub-units and topics of the test content. Hence, it should cover the whole syllabus. One importance should be given to each topic.
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